1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication system, and more particularly, to a communication system and a method of non-intrusive performance data polling for a predetermined object.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, A communication system, such as a switchboard, includes an input/output-line mapping unit, a switching unit, and a main controller.
An input-line mapping unit is related to an entire object in the conventional communication system, where the input/output-line mapping unit includes a usage parameter control (i.e., “UPC”), a head converter (i.e., “HCV”), an operation, administration and management (i.e., “OAM”).
The UPC monitors object flows in each connection, in other words the number of the objects per second, and the HCV converts a virtual channel identification (i.e., “VCI”) transmitted from the network to another VCI outputted to a switching unit or an output transmission line. Additionally, the OAM monitors whether a transmission line or a communication system is operated normally or not, or watches performance data, such as data loss or operation errors. Each of the objects is a unit connected with a communication system, and supplies various data including performance data.
By referring to header information of an object, the switching unit (not shown) routes, in other words sets virtual channel to, an output transmission line to a destination address, and the main controller controls values converted from header information to manage a communication system failure or the communication system itself.
In more details, the OAM includes a configuration task (i.e., “CT”), an alarm polling task (i.e., “APT”), an alarm task (i.e., “AT”), a performance polling task (i.e., “PPT”), and a performance task (i.e., “PT”).
The configuration task (i.e., “CT”) manages the OAM, the alarm task (i.e., “AT”) manages present alarms and warnings. The alarm-polling task (i.e., “APT”) monitors alarm information of an object generating an alarm, and transmits the alarm information to the AT. The performance task (i.e., “PT”) manages performance data. Additionally, the performance polling task (i.e., “PPT”) calculates performance data by alarm information for system hardware, or reads periodically the performance data accumulated on the system hardware to transmit the performance data to the performance task (i.e., “PT”).
The performance data includes an error second (i.e., “eS”), a severely error second (i.e., “sES”), a unavailable second (i.e., “uAS”), a code violation (i.e., “cV”), and so on, while such data are stored in a memory device in each of the objects.
The above described communication system gets performance data from each of the objects to calculate or accumulate the entire performance data for communication equipment.
In the conventional system, for monitoring performance data of a predetermined object continuously, the performance polling task (i.e., “PPT”) searches an entire object. However, when other task in competitive relation with the PPT, such as the configuration task (i.e., “CT”), performs configuration data polling to the predetermined object, it frequently happens that the performance polling task (i.e., “PPT”) cannot perform performance data polling for the predetermined object, but another object instead of the predetermined object from the entire object.
In other words, in the case of the communication system including the entire object including each object OB1, OB2, . . . , OBn, when the performance polling task performs performance data polling for each object OB1, OB2, . . . , OBn while the configuration task (i.e., “CT”) operates, it frequently happens to perform the performance data polling incorrectly.
Therefore, the performance polling task (i.e., “PPT”) can get time loss due to delay in searching the entire object, and another object when the predetermined object is changed to the other object by the configuration task (i.e., CT), for example in a searching order table. In other words, it is hard to get correct performance data because of difficulties in correct calculation or performance data polling for each of the predetermined objects.